GORDON MONAHAM
“IF YOU HAVE NOTHING TO DO, DO IT ON STAGE”
Nel 1996 al Kunstpavillion in Rosa Luxemburg Platz di Berlino un gruppo di canadesi si inventa lo SPATVERKAUF, una piccola stanza con qualsivoglia cosa, estremamente kitch, strasbordante, erano un gruppo di artisti e musicisti che professavano la musica e la cultura exotica, un ritorno agli anni cinquanta reinterpretati in una cornice berlinese contemporanea. Gordon W., un eccellente cuoco Neoista, con il suo GORDON W'S SCHARFNESS ISTITUT cucinava cose dai profumi esoticissimi creando performance: “The forbidden nectarine impactions of spice island”, “the impacted croissant from outer space – the nectarine impactedness of Bagdad”.
Il gruppo musicale con cantanti improvvisati tipo Karaoke era il KBZ200, Gordon Monham alle tastiere farfisa, gondon W. tabla e teremin. Gli allestimenti erano curati dalla bella Laura Kikawa. In una settimana vengo bombardato da affascinanti novità. Tutta quella musica, quel movimento, mi piacciono. Partecipo con Gordon W. ad una performance “masticare o morire”, una live frittura di pesce, con polenta e salse esotiche a base di tamarindo... Mi parlano di Opacity scale della musica, di moog, Tiki, les Baxter, martin Denny, e da quel momento mi invaghisco della musica lounge e easy listing più in generale.
"Masticare o morire" GORDON W e TORCY
THE MOULDY VEXATIONS OF VINYL ROT
Welcome to the irritaining world of KBZ 200. A world where only three songs are played, over and over again, in a seemingly endless train of masterful and inventive cover versions. Only three songs. Sounds boring, you say? Give it a listen. We think you'll change your mind, and maybe even your attitude.
That's because the producers and musicians featured on this disk have been through a lot. They've toured more than four countries on two continents, presenting these same three songs in 18 hour 'Vexations-style' events, manipulating cover version after cover version of Quiet Village, Taboo, and Caravan. Oh sure, sometimes the KBZ 200 has managed to bug people a bit: getting physically thrown out by club owners after only nine hours or so, or having their event interrupted after thirteen hours by an overly zealous control freak DJ who decides to put a non-trilogy song on the turntable and refuses to remove it.
But in general, the KBZ 200 has experienced many successes. These tracks are selected from a 3-volume set of cassettes (the cassettes feature 81 different versions altogether of the some 3
songs!) that the KBZ has been putting out since 1991. An initial offering is being released now on CD because the KBZ is tired of answering the endless stream of requests for more cassettes of the original Exotic Trilogy volumes. People who bought cassettes only one or two weeks before, come by asking for more copies because their original ones were stolen. This happened so many times in the past that we decided to do a survey. It turns out that a majority of Exotic Trilogy cassette owners have had their original copies stolen, obviously by thieves who couldn't be bothered finding out where they can buy their own copy. So, a word of caution: keep this disk in a safe place. If you have to take this music over to a friend's place, bring a back-up copy on cassette only. Why only three songs, you may ask? That's because the KBZ 200 pays attention to important trends in music history. This particular trend begins in Paris, in 1893. That's when Erik Satie composed Vexations, a one page piano piece that is repeated 840 times. This takes about 18 hours. In Erik's time, recording technology had yet to be invented, but that didn't stop him from conceiving of background music, or musique d'ameublement (furniture music), as he called it. Composing a piece to be played 'live' in the
background, over and over again, while people were supposed to converse and socialize in its presence was a pretty radical idea, if not downright avant-garde, at the time. An 18 hour work in repetitive form like this was not an ordinary thing for western classical music. It did, however, draw a parallel to some music rituals of exotic cultures. Many non-western cultures have musical and theatrical performances that sometimes continue for days What happened to this once-avant-garde concept called back-ground music? It turned into something called Muzak. Pretty un-avant-garde. But some Muzak has a link to another once-popular genre: Exotica. Any student of the Exotica movement would note that the three songs the KBZ 200 feature are important landmark anthems of this ersatz genre. And any of these three songs may also be considered as typically representative of the Muzak genre, as well. So why not seize upon these associations and do a Vexations of Mouldy Vinyl, thus acknowledging Muzak's implementation of Satie's concept? This CD compilation is a portion of the entire utility required to realize the mouldy impactedness of ersatz Gesomtkunstwerk. As such, it is your personal passport to Instant Baghdadianism. To create your own Tableau of Mouldy Exoticism at home, try adding a few extra touches: a flaming Tiki head is, of course, obligatory, as are the screening of south sea travelog flims and 3D exotic slides, the cooking of exquisite cuisine on Volcano Wok, augmented at the right moment with the injection of Taboo Sauce, pumped through the Coconut Bra of an exotic goddess. Employ as many musicians as possible to perform live versions of the Exotic Trilogy, but please take care to appoint a control freak stage manager who will 'pull the plug' on any musician not playing one of the three songs. To prevent the gathering from becoming too predictable, always be prepared to embrace the principle of 'Theater of Total Failure'. Remember: you are on a rudderless
voyage through the glittering desert of artcrust. So pop this disk in your CD player, select endless repetition, and sit back and enjoy the irritainment. Play it at your next get- together for a big hit - guaranteed to make new friends (and a few enemies) !
Fu facile comperare decine e decine di vinili a bassissimo prezzo, dischi per lo più fine anni sessanta ma anche anni cinquanta e primi settanta, i primi sperimentalismi stereo su vinile, i quattrofase stereo, le emi inglese…?????? Tutti proponevano ore e ore di easylisting, ovvero cover di famosissime canzoni fatte in versione orchestrale spesso con effetti sonori “da destra a sinistra” usando tutti i più innovativi echoes.
Nel 1991 assieme a Davide C. acquisisco la basi rudimentali per poter riversare qualsiasi fonte analogica in digitale, da qui inizia un progetto chiamato Lift Records.